


Play Pretend

by Michelle_A_Emerlind



Category: The Walking Dead (TV), The Walking Dead - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Zombie Apocalypse, Bottom Rick, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, First Kiss, First Time, M/M, Rickyl Writer's Group, Slutty Bottom Cop!Rick, Strippers & Strip Clubs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-05
Updated: 2015-09-05
Packaged: 2018-04-19 05:29:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4734338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Michelle_A_Emerlind/pseuds/Michelle_A_Emerlind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If Daryl HAS to pick a guy at a stripclub to get a lapdance from because Merle won't leave him alone, then he might as well pick the one in the sexy cop outfit, right?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Play Pretend

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MermaidSheenaz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MermaidSheenaz/gifts).



> This fic is for the lovely [MermaidSheenaz](http://archiveofourown.org/users/MermaidSheenaz/pseuds/MermaidSheenaz%22) for her birthday! Happy birthday, dear! I hope you like it! 
> 
> And thanks to skarlatha and all of the Rickyl Writer's Group for their help in making this fic become a thing! You guys rock!

Daryl would rather be home on his couch watching something mindless like _The Amazing Race_ than standing here in his current predicament--in the middle of a stripclub with a bottle of lube and five fucking condoms burning a hole in his pocket while Merle pointed out the hottest firefighter in the joint and tried to get Daryl to go bang him.

But Daryl guesses this is what you get when you complain to your brother that you haven’t been laid in over a year and he also knows that it’s physically impossible for you to get it up for a chick. You end up with a bag of sex paraphernalia (Daryl left the nipple clamps and the industrial grade cockring in the car--mostly because he figures Merle’s used them before, which means Daryl doesn’t want to touch them with a ten-foot-pole) and a trip down to the local gay stripclub near midnight on a Saturday. Fuck Daryl’s life. What did he do to deserve this?

“What about the murse?” Merle asks. “That is a _nice_ male nurse.”

Daryl rolls his eyes at the shitty costumes in this place and grunts a negative one more time. “No murse?” Merle asks. “And no firefighter. Jesus, you’re a picky little dick, baby brother. How about that guy? He’s some kind of...I don’t know, teacher or some shit. Wanna be a bad boy who got an F on his quiz?”

“No,” Daryl says, “thank you.”

Merle smacks him on his back and forces him to take a step forward into the crowd. “Well, I don’t give a shit where your dick goes, but it’s going somewhere. I ain’t gonna sit on the couch anymore while you _whine_ about how lonely it is in our fuckin’ shack. Which, I want to point out again, isn’t a _shack_. It’s a very respectable studio apartment--”

“Merle. We live in the woods. In a one room house made of logs. It’s a fucking shack.”

“Well, I don’t give a shit about any shittin’ shacks right now unless it’s the shack in which you are _shacking up_ with a piece of ass in this joint.”

“They’re _strippers_ ,” Daryl feels the need to qualify. “Not prostitutes.”

“Eh,” Merle says with a wave of his hand, “you’re gonna ask ‘em for a lap dance and after a second or two of a grindin’ on a Dixon, they’re anything you want.” Merle points to a guy in chaps and a wide-brimmed felt-black cowboy hat. “Ride ‘em cowboy?”

Daryl rolls his eyes and decides if Merle isn’t going to leave him alone, he’s at least going to have to pay one of these fine gentleman for a few minutes of their time. So he leaves Merle and stalks off into the crowd, looks around at the really poor depiction of what he can only guess is Han Solo, followed by an astronaut and then a rock star. He studiously ignores the stage where a man in ugly plastic angel wings is swinging around a pole next to a man with poorly crafted demon horns fixed in his hair. He’s starting to feel like he’s in the middle of a freshman college Halloween party instead of an honest to god “pay me to grind on you” establishment when he bumps shoulder to shoulder with a cop.

The cop blinks as he looks up at him, all diamond baby blues that send sparks through Daryl’s body, starting at the very tip top of his head and playing down through his spine like lightning striking through water. “Sorry,” the cop mumbles with a laugh. “Not watching where I’m going.”

Daryl drinks his body in, lean and fit with a healthy cock to his hips, a good amount of stubble that is almost beard grazing his chin, and a nose that is long and predatorily arched. And the outfit he’s wearing is...decent. Presentable. It’s the tan of the standard Georgia police office, with a little patch that says “Grimes,” and it looks comfortably worn, but also recently washed and not made of dime store pipe cleaners and cotton balls. And Daryl’s not going to even _begin_ to comment on the holster. He thinks of this man dancing on him, rolling his hips down into Daryl’s, sparkles reflecting in his eyes like the sun off a rippling creek and something like choir music begins to sing through Daryl’s mind.

If this were anyone else in the world, Daryl most certainly wouldn’t be so bold. But this is a stripper. And if he’s not going to get out of a lapdance, then at least he can fucking _enjoy_ it. So he grins and lifts his hand, puts it on the man’s cheek and wonders briefly if that’s against the rules. “How much?” he asks and rubs his thumb across the skin he finds there.

Grimes blinks rapidly and stutters. “W-what?”

“For a dance. A _private_ dance. I don’t want that pilot over there giving me the eyes.”

For a stripper, it seems to take Grimes a long time to catch on. He looks at the pilot who’s currently chatting up another customer and then at Daryl and then cranes his neck back to the private booths with flashing lights for “vacant” and “occupied.”

“Oh,” Grimes says and then gives Daryl a thorough up-and-down look. He ends at his eyes, catching onto them like flypaper. Daryl wonders just how deep the irises go and if he could spend his entire life reflected in them. “You do this often?”

Daryl snorts. “No.” He pauses and then figures what’s a little flattery going to hurt when working with this kind of business transaction? “You’re pretty, though.”

Grimes laughs and his eyes twinkle. He shakes his head, which happens to dislodge Daryl’s hand and he lets it fall to his side again, ignores how it now has a fire for touch. “What’s your name?”

“Daryl,” Daryl says automatically before wondering if this is one of those situations in which he should come up with a fake one like “Butch” or “Guy.”

“Rick,” the cop says with a smile. “Rick Grimes.” He clears his throat and holds out his hand. “House price. Plus half. For private.”

Daryl grunts, but pulls out his wallet and pays like a good boy. And then Rick is sliding his hand in Daryl’s and pulling him back to the booths. Daryl prays that the crowd will give them a buffer from Merle, but no such luck. A long, shrill, piercing whistle cuts through the audience and Daryl rolls his eyes and shoves himself into an empty room before Merle can really get into his cat-calling.

The room is small, but everything that they need. In the center, is a large, cushy chair and Rick grunts and waves at it. Daryl sits down and finds it surprisingly firm, but comfortable under his weight. The floor is simple black tile and Daryl doesn’t want to think about why tile was chosen over something harder to clean like carpet or hardwood. There’s a speaker system in the corner and that’s what Rick curves himself to, starts frowning and pressing buttons. “Damn thing always gives me problems,” Rick grumbles as he turns dials and moves from fidgeting to slamming his finger home in an attempt to turn the damn thing on.

Daryl really shouldn’t think that this stripper is cute. But he kind of _is_ with the way his frown keeps dipping further down at the sound system and his thumb is now tapping a rhythm on the wall while his other hand keeps on working. In fact, Daryl has just about resolved himself to give up on the whole lapdance thing and just point blank ask this guy out, when the music starts up, _way_ too loud and blaring through the small room and most likely out into the main part of the club too.

Rick yells “ _shit!_ ” and goes for the volume button at the same time that Daryl clues in on what exactly they're listening to.

“Is that...is that fucking Warrant?” he asks and Rick mumbles something and stalks over to the chair now that the music is at a good volume. “Is that _Cherry Pie_?”

Rick refuses to answer him, but within the space of a few seconds he’s throwing one leg to the side of Daryl’s and hauling himself in with the other and holy shit, Daryl thinks, holy _shit_ does he fit well into Daryl’s lap. _Such a sweet surprise_ indeed.

Daryl’s hands go automatically to Rick’s hips, sliding around the belt and holster he has on, and somewhere in the back of Daryl’s mind he registers that the gun residing there looks way too real to be fake. But he’s too distracted by the heat of Rick’s thighs as they rest against him and how with just the tiniest move upward he could capture his mouth if he wanted to.

Rick slides his hands over Daryl’s and winks down at him at the same time that the stereo has started to sing _tastes so good makes a grown man cry_ and Daryl groans at the thought of fucking _tasting_ him, how heavy and strong he would be on Daryl’s tongue. But then, Rick is pulling his hands away and nodding to a sign hung up over the door that expressedly says “NO TOUCHING” underneath an even bolder sign that says “EXTRA TIME IS EXTRA MONEY,” which snaps Daryl right back to what this really is. So he lets Rick remove his hands and instead he curls them into the chair beside him, hangs on for dear life while Rick works at his belt and then drops it, holster and all, to the floor.

Daryl swallows and then, just as Jani Lane sings about swingin’, Rick rolls his hips forward. Daryl forces down a groan in his throat and tells himself over and over again that no matter what Merle says, this isn’t going to end in sex, so his dick can stand down. But it doesn’t want to. It’s half-hard already and going for full throttle and the way Rick is looking down at him, heavy smoky eyes and with just a touch of parted lips, isn’t helping.

Rick pulls his hips up and then rolls them down again and puts his own hands on his hips right where Daryl’s hands used to be, sliding them along the fabric that’s still clinging to Rick’s body. He reaches into the waistband of his pants and pulls out his shirt tucked in and Daryl can’t help but let out a whimper when the movement shows just a touch of skin. Rick lets out a puff of laughter. “Like me, do you?” he asks and then slides his hand up under his shirt, pulling it with him, exposing the flatness of his stomach and his sides, the muscles rippling as Rick goes forward again and then back on Daryl’s lap.

“ _Yes_ ,” Daryl hisses out, which is probably the most honest word he’s ever said.

Rick laughs again and drops his hand and Daryl whimpers as his clothes fall back into place. “Tell me,” Rick says and slides his hand up into his hair, throws his head back as he rolls his hips down into _full contact_.

Daryl does groan this time, but he’s a good boy and so he’ll do as he’s told. “You’re the prettiest damn man in this whole place,” Daryl groans out and resists the urge to tick his hips up into Rick.

Rick smiles and puts his hands on the top button of his outer shirt. He pops one of them off. “Go ahead,” he says and puts his fingers in place on the second button.

“Your hips fit me like puzzle pieces.” _Pop_. Another button. “I want to tangle my hands in your hair and never let go.” _Pop_. “Your skin looks as smooth as silk.” _Pop_. “Your fingers are fucking magic.” _Pop_. “I can’t stop staring into your eyes.” _Pop_. And that’s the last one. Rick smiles and slides the tan uniform from his shoulders, lets it float to the ground until the only thing that’s covering his chest from Daryl is a thin white undershirt.

He tilts his head and slides his hands ever so softly from Daryl’s chin back up into his hair. Daryl grunts. “Thought you said no touching.”

Rick smiles. “Doesn’t apply to me,” he says and keeps rolling his hips, his back arching and bowing with the motions. He tilts his head down maddeningly close to Daryl’s own and whispers. “And I touch the things I like.”

Daryl’s lips fall open into a moan. “I do, too, but you told me I couldn’t.”

Rick laughs and his eyes sparkle. “Not yet, anyway.”

Daryl’s mind fuzzed out at that statement, his brain filled with static as it tries to process _did he just say?_...but then he snaps back into the game because Rick is leaning back away from him and sliding his undershirt up and over and _off_.

Daryl blinks and then blinks again. He digs his nails into the chair to keep from touching the expanses of skin now bared to him. Rick’s chest is lean, but shaped nicely, the muscles formed naturally in that way that says he uses them for a purpose and not just for weights at the gym. His neck is long and his collarbone is to _die_ for, a deep V that fascinates Daryl, that makes him want to run his thumbs and then his tongue over the dips and rises.

Daryl aches with a fire that spreads through his veins and explodes into the rest of his body, leaving his breathless and trembling with the urge to touch. Rick senses it, too, and he leans forward again, puts his hand on the side of Daryl’s face and says, “Just a little more. And then maybe, if you don’t tell anyone, I’ll let you.”

“It’ll go to my _grave_ ,” Daryl assures him and Rick smiles with that twinkle again that Daryl could watch for the rest of his life. And then Rick is rolling not just his hips forward, but his whole entire body, pushing Daryl back into the chair and Daryl gasps out as Rick’s chest comes flush with his, putting Rick’s mouth right against his ear. Rick chuckles into it and then blows softly and Daryl shivers in excitement at the feel of it. And then Rick rolls himself back farther than he has before, using the edges of the chair to tilt himself away from Daryl and Daryl stares openly at the beautiful arch of Rick’s body in front of him, muscles tight as they hold him in place.

Rick comes back up into his standard position and starts rocking again, up and down on Daryl’s lap and then side-to-side, too. He really gets into it as the music slows to a stop and then repeats the same damn song, but Daryl couldn’t care less, because what’s sitting in his lap right now is the purest form of perfection and he’s _dying_ for it, gasping like a man without air.  

“How did you get here?” Daryl asks Rick. “You’re better than this whole damn club.”

Rick slides his hand down Daryl’s neck and moves his thumb so that it touches his chin. “Do you say that to all the strippers you bring back here?”

“You’re the first one,” Daryl tells him honestly, “so yeah. I’ve got a one hundred percent record.”

“Why’d you pick me, then?” Rick asks. “For your first time.”

Daryl takes a risk and lifts his hand, lands it softly on the small of Rick’s back and splays his fingers out, _touches_. “Because you drew me to you like a moth to a flame.”

Rick laughs, but he’s close now, right up against Daryl and the air that he expels gets trapped between them. “What a flatterer,” he says and then, against everything that Daryl expected, he’s leaning forward and his lips press into Daryl’s and their eyes slide closed at the same exact time. Daryl lets a little gasp go, but Rick is there to catch it between parted lips that glide Daryl in and everything changes, flips and switches.

Daryl dives into him with a hunger that burns deep in his gut and Rick meets him inch-for-inch, casting himself forward with a driving, fiery passion. They meet tongue for tongue and teeth for teeth, bruising and pressing at one another and the motion of Rick’s hips on Daryl’s lap falls from something professional and teasing to hard and raw and sex-filled, _grinding_ and _pushing_. “You want to have me?” Rick growls against his mouth. “You want to _fuck_ me?” Daryl groans. “Because I want to fuck you.”

And that’s all the permission Daryl needs to swing his other hand up and touch like he’s been wanting to touch. He tangles his fingers in Rick’s hair and pulls, guides Rick to the angle that he wants him and kisses with such fierce abandon that it floors both of them. Rick turns to whimpering, turns to shaking and moaning right there in front of Daryl and it doesn’t escape Daryl that Rick’s pants are tented in a mirror image of his own and god, he wants him now. Right _fucking_ now. And so he pulls off and goes for his full pocket, tries to pull the little bottle and the packets he has there out. But his hands are too shaking and the angle with Rick in his lap is hard and he starts cursing at how he can’t get it and Rick laughs at him, soft and affectionate. “Here, baby,” he says and kisses Daryl’s forehead. “Let me.”

Rick slides his fingers into Daryl’s pocket and pulls. The first thing that he snags is the five condoms, all strapped together with little tear lines and Rick arches his eyebrow hard in Daryl’s direction. “ _Wow_ ,” he says. “You’re ambitious.”

“Shut up,” Daryl says and grabs them, tears one off and chucks the others with Rick’s clothes.

“What else you got in there?” Rick chuckles and reaches forward again. “Nine more?”

Daryl blushes, but Rick smiles as he pulls out the tiny bottle of lube, no bigger than Rick’s thumb. “Everything we need,” he says and then they’re kissing again, pouring themselves into each other and Daryl gets lost in Rick’s tongue, in how he can bite and suck Rick’s lips into fullness.

“Take off your pants,” Daryl growls, “so that I can have you.”

Rick gasps. “Take off _yours_ ,” Rick answers. “And the rest of it all. So I can see you.”

And then they are, pulling apart from one another to shed clothes, until Rick’s naked skin comes into contact with Daryl’s, causing both of them to groan. Daryl puts his hands on Rick’s back, marvels at the smoothness of it and how he can feel the ripples of Rick’s muscles as he moves. And Rick puts his hand on Daryl’s chest, slides his fingers down, catching at the lifts and dips of Daryl’s skin. “Rick,” Daryl breathes. “That is your real name, right?”

Rick chuckles. “Yeah. Rick.” He slides his hands down Daryl’s sides. “And Daryl.” He meets Daryl’s eyes and Daryl drinks them in--how the pupils are larger now, open and searching, and how the crystal clear blueness of the irises has thinned down into little slits that still sing the exact melody of Daryl’s soul. “Fuck me,” Rick whispers and rolls his hips in a mockery of earlier, but earlier was nothing. Earlier was the dripping of a faucet and this, _this_ is the roaring of the ocean.

“Have to get ready first,” Daryl says, popping the small bottle open.

“Then get me ready,” Rick snaps, “because I’m burning for you.”

It’s Daryl who chuckles this time, pulls Rick into him hard and lifts him up slightly so that Daryl can have easy access to him. Rick puts his mouth to good use on Daryl’s neck while Daryl slicks up his fingers and then, with just an adjustment and one little push, Daryl has one finger slide inside. Rick moans loudly into Daryl’s skin and Daryl is suddenly extremely glad that Warrant is still blaring in the background and hiding their activities from anyone who might be waiting outside. “You’re really tight,” Daryl observes.

“Been a long time since I’ve done this,” Rick answers into his neck.

“Really?” Daryl says in just a bit of disbelief.

Rick chuckles. “What? You think I fuck all my clients?”

Daryl leans forward and kisses Rick’s shoulder as he slides another finger in and works him open. “Just not used to being special is all.”

Rick follows the curve of Daryl’s neck up until he gets to his ear and then slides over to his mouth, kisses him deeply while Daryl’s fingers thrust into and out of him. “Don’t know why,” Rick breathes against his mouth. “I have tunnel vision for you and I don’t really see that ever going away.”

“Ever?”

“Ever,” Rick breathes and Daryl’s fingers start to scissor, pull him open and make him ready. Rick moans. “You’re killing me here.”

“Killing you?” Daryl asks with a twinkle in his own eyes. “What? You want me to fuck you or something?”

Rick laughs and then shakes his head, goes back to a serious expression. “If you don’t get your cock in me I’m going to murder you.”

Daryl grins wickedly, but figures he’s made Rick wait long enough. He takes the packet from where Rick set it down while they were shedding clothes and rips it open, finishes getting himself ready and then pulls Rick’s body to him, angles him just where he wants him. “Think they can hear you scream?” Daryl asks, nodding to the door.

Rick licks his lips and grins down at Daryl. “I don’t know. Let’s see.”

And then, with his hands guiding Rick’s body and his hips thrusting upward, Daryl slides inside. He goes slow, so slow that his body shakes with it and he can see Rick’s trembling as well, but he wants to draw it out, wants to make it memorable. Rick throws his arms around Daryl’s neck and moans, but Daryl refuses to speed this up, so he presses forward until just the head breaches Rick and then moves ever so slowly upward, his length pushing forward centimeter by centimeter by centimeter. Rick’s mouth falls open and he starts to pant and Daryl digs his fingernails into Rick’s hips to keep himself going and not just slamming in. But then, after what feels like an eternity, the slow breaking and making of the Earth, Rick is thoroughly in his lap, his ass pressing against Daryl’s balls, Daryl fully and truly home.

Rick parts his mouth and lets a puff of air go in what is half a laugh and a half of sound of awe. “You fit me like you were made for me,” he tells Daryl and Daryl wonders if he was.

Rick pulls his body up and then slides it back down and Daryl groans, lets him set up the rhythm. Rick is smooth and all perfect angles. He knows how to lift his hips just right and drag his body up Daryl’s cock, knows how to slide it home and shift when he gets all the way in, wiggle so that Daryl feels the pressure against his balls and his thighs. It’s slow and it’s agony and it’s perfection and Daryl thinks that his bank account is probably going to be damn well empty in two weeks time if he keeps coming back here to see Rick as much as he’s thinking he’s going to have to.

And then, as if this wasn’t already exactly what he wanted in life, Rick speeds up, starts pulling and then slamming home, starts making it hot and tight and fast and hard, dragging moans from both of their mouths and it’s not going to take Daryl long like this, not at all, but he wants something _more_ , wants something beyond just Rick riding him in a mockery of the lapdance, and so Daryl grabs him, pulls Rick to a stop and straight up to his chest, drags him in until he’s sitting on his cock, as far deep as they can manage it. “You want me to fuck you?” he asks Rick and stares up into those pretty blue eyes.

Rick gasps and tangles his hands in Daryl’s hair. “ _Yes_.”

“Really fuck you?”

“God yes.”

“Make you forget every other guy you’ve ever even touched?”

“Oh, _fuck yes_ ,” Rick breathes against his mouth and so Daryl pushes forward, topples both of them off the chair and onto the floor and before Rick can really even process what’s happening, he adjusts himself and slams back home, goes as far and deep as he can physically get. Rick cries out with it, screams into the room, and clutches at Daryl’s back, dragging his nails into Daryl’s flesh. His thighs tremble with the thrusts that Daryl starts making into him, hard and rough and claiming and Rick’s legs come up to wrap around Daryl’s back, guide him in and out with the rotation of his hips. “Fuck me,” he encourages. “ _Fuck me_.” And Daryl keeps doing it, keeps slamming Rick further up on the floor and Rick tugs at his hair until Daryl pulls his head to the side and their eyes meet, blue for blue. “Fuck me,” Rick whispers again, staring straight into him, his lips falling apart in the words at every thrust. “Fuck me, fuck me, _fuck me_.”

Daryl groans and leans forward, captures his lips in a hard bruising kiss, but Rick still manages to gasp it around the small break in their lips, “ _Fuck me_ ,” until his words turn to something else, something even dirtier. “ _Daryl, fuck me_.” And that word, that statement spoken in his breath, that name on his lips, causes Daryl to twitch inside him and slam home harder, barely hold on to the pressure that’s building up in his body.

“ _Yes_ ,” Daryl hisses against his lips, his hand on the back of Rick’s neck, his fingertips touching the curls at the nape, “say my name, baby. _Say it_.”

“Daryl,” Rick breathes, staring into his eyes. “Daryl!” he cries. _“Daryl!_ ” he screams.

And Daryl keeps hitting him, keeps thrusting forward and slamming his dick in, pulling sounds out of Rick’s body that are quite probably the sounds that keep Daryl living. Between them, Rick also strains, his cock sliding against their flesh as it slams together and Daryl growls in his ear, “You’re so hard for me.”

“Yes,” Rick whimpers, “yes, Daryl, fuck me.”

“Do you want me to touch you?” Daryl asks, still unable to look away from Rick’s beautiful eyes as they cascade into him.

“ _Yes_ ,” Rick whimpers. “Touch me and then kiss me. And fuck me while you do it. Make me come for you.”

Daryl smiles and slides his hand between them, grasps Rick at the base and pulls up, lets his hand glide over his cock. Rick moans and clings, digs his nails into Daryl’s back and starts whimpering. Daryl brings his mouth forward, presses it lightly against Rick’s and speaks against him. “Rick,” he says, a little breathless whisper spoken only for the two of them. “You’re so goddamn beautiful.”

And then he kisses him, dives inside and Rick moans around him as Daryl slams forward at the same time, twists his wrist and starts really stroking Rick. Rick falls apart under him, all tense muscles and pooled skin and he kisses back with a fierce, honest kind of desperation that makes Daryl wonder if he found _the one_ right here in a strip club, colored in the tan of a police uniform, and with the film of intimacy clinging to his skin.

Rick is shivering under him with the power of holding back and Daryl knows it’s time, knows with an instinct buried down in the DNA of his body how to make Rick finish. He pulls his mouth away just long enough to say, “Come for me, Rick,” and then he moves his whole body as one. He dives his tongue back inside Rick’s mouth, slams his head into the tile at the same time that he slams his body forward with a powerful thrust that makes Rick’s body twitch from need and Daryl moves his hand, too, brings his thumb up over the slit and touches him, sensitive and ready and that does it. That’s it.

Daryl drinks in Rick as he comes, memorizes every second of it in case this is the only time. Rick tenses at first, his body going still, and then he arches every muscle he has up into Daryl. His hips meet Daryl’s thrust and cling, his ass tightening to hold Daryl inside. His mouth hardens, closes around Daryl’s and refuses to leave and the muscles of his thighs, his sides, his stomach go rigid and then break, arch as Rick’s cock twitches and then empties itself between them, covering Daryl’s stomach and Rick’s with the pleasure that Daryl has ripped out of his body.

And that, _that_ , the response of Rick’s body, the tension and then the pliant release as his muscles unhinge, sends Daryl over. He cries out himself a word that could be Rick’s name, is Rick’s name, will always be Rick’s name, and he finishes, ends with a powerful thrust that brings himself fully inside Rick. And Rick holds him, keeps him there with his mouth, his body, the firmness of his legs until Daryl quiets and collapses against Rick on the black tile floor of the private dancing room of the strip club where Daryl might as well have emptied his heart the same as he’s emptied his body.

Rick chuckles against his skin. “I think that’s the best sex I’ve ever had,” he tells Daryl and Daryl wonders if he’s lying, if he does this every Saturday night to one of the boys he dances upon, if his uniform carries the smell of hundreds of men who have taken him on this floor, who Rick has broken the touching rule for and let them have him.

So Daryl just grunts and pulls out, rips the condom off and tosses it in a trashcan in the corner before dressing himself back up. “Thanks,” he tells Rick, “for the experience.”

Rick frowns at him, but nods and stands as well, cleans himself up as best as he can and dresses. They leave the room together and Daryl only mildly recognizes that Rick had never flipped the switch to “occupied,” but his brain is elsewhere. He heads for the exit, determined to find Merle and head back to the shack, and is shocked when Rick falls into step beside him. “Aren’t you...you know…” Daryl shrugs. “Working?”

Rick stumbles and then shakes his head. “N-no. You were...I was off, really. Just finished my shift. When you asked me.”

“ _Oh_ ,” Daryl says and files that new information away.

Rick walks beside him close, but not too close. Too near to be just acquaintances or friends, too far away to be the intimacy of lovers. They break out into the night air and Daryl curves his way to his truck, which Merle is standing beside. “I had a good time,” Rick calls, but Daryl just grunts and ignores him. It’s probably best he start distancing himself now, he thinks. Before he does anything stupid like fall in love with a stripper.

***

Two days later, Daryl is speeding through a school zone. Of course, he doesn’t really feel that this is relevant considering that a) the school zone is only half a mile and should he really drop from 50 to 30 and then up again to 50 for half a mile, b) it’s at the edge of town and so really who is going to be watching, and c) it’s the middle of the night and no kids are damn well present. But the good men and women of the King County Sheriff's Department must not feel that way due to the flashing red and blue lights in Daryl’s rearview mirror.

Daryl sighs heavily and pulls himself off to the side, kills the engine and waits. The headlights of the police car keep him from seeing who’s approaching and it takes him a long time, anyway, to look up at the officer that approaches his side of the truck. But something in the sweet, gruff drawl of the man’s voice as he says “License and Registration,” sets off an alarm in Daryl’s head and he clicks into reality.

He curves his head up and blinks into the startling blue eyes of Rick Grimes who is standing there with a ticket book in his hand and half a smile on his face.

Daryl balks and swings his head back to look at the cop car. He instantly relaxes into his seat and rolls his eyes. “Don’t you think you’re taking it a bit far, even for a stripper?” he asks Rick. “Making your car into a cop car? Isn’t that kind of illegal?”

Rick’s half smile turns into a full grin and he shakes his head, starts writing in his book. “Not illegal if you’re a cop.”

Daryl blinks. “A cop?”

“Yeah,” Rick says, still writing, “a real cop. Want to see my badge number?”

“Your bad--” Daryl swallows. _Surely_ not. “You’re shitting me, right? You’re not a real…”

Rick shakes his head and his grin is practically as big as his face. “Not shitting you. Been working at King County for years now.”

“But...” Daryl says and feels his face heating up. Please dear god tell him he didn’t pay a cop for a lapdance. Please, _please_ tell him he didn’t solicit a cop for _sex_ and Rick is going to cuff him for prostitution of an official.

“Went to the club to talk to the owner about a fire code,” Rick answers his unspoken question. “Too many bodies in one place. Had a good talk with him and then was heading out when you got the wrong impression.”

“Oh, fuck, I paid a cop for sex,” Daryl mumbles, his voice high and squeaky. He puts his hands over his nose and leans forward a little in his seat. “Officer, I am _so, so_ sorry. I don’t normally do that. My brother--”

“It’s fine,” Rick says, his grin wide and uncontrolled. He laughs. “Wasn’t lying when I said it was the best sex of my life. But here. Take this.” Rick rips the ticket off and hands it to Daryl who takes it into his hand with numb, automatic fingers. “Try to watch the speed limits more, okay?” Rick gives him a little wink and then turns and heads back to his car.

It takes Daryl the entire walk back and Rick killing the lights and pulling out onto the road before Daryl glances down at the ticket in his hand, illuminated by a nearby streetlight. He expects to see a hefty fine, one that will kill his electric bill and send them into even more poverty for the next month. But what he finds is not that at all. Because instead of a fine, there’s a little note written into the boxes: “Call me sometime. I’d love to have dinner. xoxo -Rick. P.S: Drive safe.”

Daryl stares for a long time at the note, at the little letters written in Rick’s beautiful scrawl. At the phone number scribbled at the top of the ticket and at the way his name is signed with loops and quick arches of scratches. Daryl heart begins to flutter in his chest, a soft little beating that grows faster and faster like a drumline. Rick isn’t a stripper. He wasn’t under any obligation to do anything for Daryl. But he did. He let Daryl touch him, let Daryl have him, let Daryl walk him out of the club and Daryl’s an idiot. The biggest idiot in all of Georgia. Because he had this beautiful, shining, perfect thing in his grasp. And he let it go. But not again. Never again.

Daryl’s going to call him and date the _shit_ out of that fucker.

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr Links:  
> [MAE's Rickyl Fics and Recs](http://maerickyl.tumblr.com/): Where you can find a list of my fanfic, fanfic recs, and snippets of works in progress.  
> [Michelle A. Emerlind](http://michelleaemerlind.tumblr.com/): My general tumblr where I put stuff? And things? And just whatever I want.


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